On the Saturday March 21, 2026 edition of The Richard Crouse Show we’ll meet Nat Boltt and Miriam Margolyes, the writer director and star of a new, heartwarming dramedy called “Holy Days.” The story, set in 1970s New Zealand and adapted from Joy Cowley’s novel, follows a grieving young boy (Elijah Tamati) who joins the nuns on a chaotic journey across the country. They aim to save their convent (or retrieve deeds to it) while dealing with themes of loss, faith, family, and mischief.
Nat Boltt is an actress, you may remember from playing Penelope Blossom on the hit show “Riverdale.” She is a writer and director, and “Holy Days” is her first feature.
British-Australian acting legend Miriam Margolyes, OBE, is the beloved character actress who’s stolen scenes for decades—from Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter films and Mrs. Mingott in The Age of Innocence (which earned her a BAFTA) to countless unforgettable turns in Blackadder, Babe and recent projects like the Oscar-nominated short A Friend of Dorothy.
Then, we’ll meet David Bouchard, a highly acclaimed Canadian author (of Métis/Ojibway heritage), former teacher and school principal, Order of Canada recipient, and passionate advocate for literacy, Indigenous stories, and cultural understanding. Today we’ll talk about his new book Dreamcatcher: Grandmother’s Web.
Each week on the nationally syndicated Richard Crouse Show, Canada’s most recognized movie critic brings together some of the most interesting and opinionated people from the movies, television and music to put a fresh spin on news from the world of lifestyle and pop-culture. Tune into this show to hear in-depth interviews with actors and directors, to find out what’s going on behind the scenes of your favourite shows and movies and get a new take on current trends. Recent guests include Chris Pratt, Elvis Costello, Baz Luhrmann, Martin Freeman, David Cronenberg, Mayim Bialik, The Kids in the Hall and many more!
All iHeartRadio Canada stations are available across Canada via live stream on iHeartRadio.caand the iHeartRadio Canada app. iHeartRadio Canada stations are also connected through Alexa, Siri, and Google Home smart speakers.
I join the CTV NewsChanel to talk about Ryan Gosling’s sci fi adventure “Project Hail Mary,” the psychological thriller “The Things You Kill” and the horror sequel “Ready or Not 2: Here I Come.”
Remember when red carpets were about journalism… and not vertical video, viral moments, and whether someone got free cake?
This week on Entertainment Is Broken, Sarah and I dive into the growing clash between influencers and traditional entertainment journalism — and ask the uncomfortable question: who actually belongs on the red carpet anymore?
From the Oscars red carpet controversy to the backlash surrounding TikTok influencer Jake Shane at the Vanity Fair party, we break down what happens when viral culture meets legacy media… and whether the result is evolution or erosion.
Along the way, we explore:
How red carpet interviews have changed from journalism to content creation
The rise of TikTok influencers in Hollywood spaces
Whether viral moments are replacing meaningful conversations
Behind-the-scenes stories from TIFF, press junkets, and old-school Hollywood access
Why authenticity still matters — whether you have millions of followers or none
Plus: BTS Army shows up in a big way, Richard shares wild junket stories (including Rome and the Vatican…), and Sarah defends the idea that maybe disruption isn’t the enemy — maybe it’s the point.
Are influencers ruining the red carpet… or just revealing what it’s become?
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to tune a violin. Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about Ryan Gosling’s sci fi adventure “Project Hail Mary,” the psychological thriller “The Things You Kill” and the horror sequel “Ready or Not 2: Here I Come.”
I review the new Ryan Gosling sci fi adventure “Project Hail Mary” for ctvnews.ca!
“An intimate spectacle, it’s a huge, Spielbergian movie that’s also a moving, odd-couple story with curiosity and awe infused into every frame…” reaed the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “Project Hail Mary,” a new sci fi adventure starring Ryan Gosling and now playing in theatres, an astronaut wakes from a coma on a spaceship with no memory of his life or earth-saving mission. “11.9 light-years from home. 6th grade science teacher. 1 chance to save us all.”
CAST: Ryan Gosling, Sandra Hüller, Lionel Boyce, Ken Leung, Milana Vayntrub, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller.
REVIEW: Based on Andy Weir’s novel of the same name, “Project Hail Mary” is a contradiction. An intimate spectacle, it’s a huge, Spielbergian movie that’s also a moving odd couple story with curiosity and awe infused into every frame.
Told on a broken timeline, “Project Hail Mary” begins with molecular-biologist-turned-middle-school-science-teacher-turned-astronaut Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) awakening aboard a spaceship. Alone—the rest of the crew expired years ago in their pods—he can’t remember who he is or the nature of his mission.
As his memory slowly returns, the details of Project Hail Mary come into focus. Life on earth is threatened by a sun-eating microbe called Astrophage, and it is his job to figure out a way to stop it before Earth is plunged into an extinction level deep freeze.
As he pieces together the details of his life and task, he discovers he is not alone when he encounters a spaceship on the same mission. The lone passenger is Rocky (voice of James Ortiz), a faceless rock-like alien with five arms who comminates via musical chords through vents in his head.
With a shared sense of purpose, the unlikely duo form a friendship that just might save both their worlds.
The script by Drew Goddard, who also adapted Andy Weir’s “The Martian” for film, simplifies and streamlines the scientific source material, but never dumbs it down. Fans of Weir’s novel will get a dose of Grace’s scientific process, but it is the film’s approach to tried-and-true concepts of cooperation, cross cultural understanding and sacrifice that are at the forefront.
The back-and-forth between Grace and Rocky, often jocular but occasionally profound, lies at the film’s heart as an uplifting antidote for today’s polarized world.
“Fist my bump,” Rocky says. “Fist-bump,” Grace responds. “It’s just ‘fist-bump.’” It’s a funny back-and-forth, but their budding relationship is cemented with Rocky’s simple, Yoda-like pronouncement, “You are friend now.”
It’s a sci fi story rich in warmth that works, despite one of the main players resembling a rotisserie chicken made of stone.
As an everyman who has heroism thrust upon him, Gosling is the ideal leading man for co-directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. He generates chemistry with the above-mentioned stone alien puppet and brings humor—plus a knack for physical comedy—and heart to keep things interesting even when the movie’s 156-minute runtime slows in the mid-section.
The last name “Grace” carries some symbolic heft in “Project Hail Mary,” stationing the character as a last chance for salvation but it is the movie itself that delivers grace in the form of uplift, compassion and a sense of wonder. It’s the kind of film will make you feel better when you leave the theatre than you felt on the way in.
SYNOPSIS: In “The Things You Kill,” a new thriller now playing in theatres from award winning director Alireza Khatami, a Turkish university professor seeks vengeance in the death of his mother.
CAST: Ekin Koç, Erkan Kolçak Köstendil, Hazar Ergüçlü, Ercan Kesal. Directed by Alireza Khatami.
REVIEW: A thriller that also works as a character study, “The Things You Kill” is finely crafted study of grief, vengeance and identity.
Ekin Koç plays Ali, a university literature professor whose life is slowly spiralling downwards. Uneasy about keeping his low fertility diagnosis a secret from his wife and an unstable work life, he’s driven to the edge by the suspicious death of his mother, an elderly woman disabled after being beaten years before by Ali’s domineering father Hamit (Ercan Kesal).
When his mother is found, face down in her home, with the doors locked, Ali suspects foul play. Haunted by grief, his personal investigation into his mother’s passing leads him to lay the blame for her death at his father’s feet.
Shattered and filled with vengeance, Ali hires his gardener Reza (Erkan Kolçak Köstendil) to kidnap and kill Hamit.
No spoilers here but suffice to say that what follows is a look at how repression can manifest itself in increasingly existential ways.
“The Things You Kill” takes a big swing mid-movie. Accept it, and the film opens up, revealing a morality play disguised as an Hitchcockian story of the horrors of losing control of one’s life. It may ask more questions than it answers, but the study of intergenerational trauma and inherited violence elevates what could have been a standard story of revenge.
It’s a bold movie that challenges audience expectations. Instead of offering easy answers to the film’s questions, director Alireza Khatami favors ambiguity, dream-like sequences and elliptical storytelling. Engaged viewers will find much to chew on here as the story develops from family drama and revenge to darker and more surreal.
The spectre of David Lynch hangs heavy over “The Things You Kill” in its ability to challenge the audience’s perceptions of what a revenge movie can be by infusing a well know genre with riddles and feverish metaphors that allow for viewer interpretation.
“The Things That Kill” you is a rarity, a cerebral story of vengeance that embraces the tropes of the genre and then subverts them with clever filmmaking.
SYNOPSIS: In “Ready or Not 2: Here I Come,” a sequel to the 2019 horror comedy “Ready or Not,” Grace MacCaullay is once again targeted by the 1% in a deadly game of hide ‘n seek. “It’s not round two… it’s sudden death.”
CAST: Samara Weaving, Kathryn Newton, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Shawn Hatosy, David Cronenberg, Elijah Wood. Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett.
REVIEW: The new film picks up immediately after newlywed Grace MacCaullay (Samara Weaving) survived her new family’s deadly game of hide ‘n seek. Still dressed in her blood stained wedding dress and smoking a cigarette after the action-packed wedding night that left her fiancée and his entire family dead, she finds herself the target in an even deadlier diversion.
“By surviving Hide and Seek you’ve triggered a new game,” says the lawyer for the aristocratic game players (Elijah Wood). “This time against the High Council families. Double or nothing. This part will be familiar. They will try and kill you.”
The High Council families are the 1% of the 1%. Rich beyond belief, their money and power is the result of a deal with the devil, and now they must hunt and kill Grace and sister Faith (Kathryn Newton) for the chance to sit in the “high seat,” the world’s most powerful position.
Questions is, can devil worshippers outwit, outplay and outlast two resourceful women named for the pious properties of grace and faith?
Like many sequels “Ready or Not 2: Here I Come” is bigger than the original. There are more characters, more gore, two protagonists—Grace now has a sister, even if they aren’t close. “Biologically speaking, we’re sisters,” Faith says, “but we’re not family.”—and the stakes are higher.
But, like a pimple or a hole in the roof, bigger isn’t better.
The new film, which features the same creative team as the 2019 original, directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, and writers Guy Busick and R. Christopher Murphy, gets off to a fun start with Amy Winehouse’s version of the Shirelles classic “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?” but soon devolves into a morass of exposition.
In the forty-five minutes before the “game” begins, Weaving has the unenviable task of recapping the plot of the first movie and later Wood wades through the over complicated history of the High Council and the rules of the hunt for Grace and Faith. It’s clunky and even though Weaving and Newton spark off one another, and Wood appears to be having fun, it’s s slog. ighkjfk
What follows is a litany of near misses, bland action choreography and gallons of grizzly gore. The fight sequences are uninspired, although a battle involving pepper spray has the kind of exuberance missing from the other action scenes.
“Ready or Not 2: Here I Come” has a few laughs—Faith pleads for her life with the well-delivered line: “No, no I’m her emergency contact!”—but the needlessly complicated story leans into the evil without the absurdity that made the first movie so much fun.
